Maine’s Mount Desert Island is the Ultimate New England Summer Destination

We arrived on Mount Desert Island just before Labor Day weekend, after which our sons, Louis and Gabriel, would be returning to school. The summer up until then had been built around extended visits to family and friends. This trip to Maine, my wife, Anne, and I had decided, would be a retreat for just the four of us, with as few distractions as possible. We pictured rocky, remote islands, pine trees, and tents under a night sky filled with stars. There would be days with no cell phones or computers, spent wandering around Acadia National Park, which covers roughly half of Mount Desert Island.

This wasn’t our first trip to Maine. Two years earlier, we had visited a friend’s oceanfront home just outside the town of Rockland. We ate soft-shell lobsters fresh from the ocean and witnessed afternoon storms followed by sunsets that turned the sky a vivid shade of pink. Anne and I developed a habit of describing that trip in near-mystical terms, as somehow both ordinary and magical, familiar and unlike anything else. 

Our five-day itinerary on Mount Desert Island was intended to recapture that magic, with visits to nearly every corner of Acadia, along with enough lobster shacks, pie stands, forest preserves, and coastal villages to fill an entire summer. We would first spend two nights at Under Canvas Acadia, a glamping site a 35-minute drive away on the adjacent Blue Hill Peninsula. Then we would cross the short causeway that connects the mainland to Mount Desert and stay four nights in Bar Harbor, the island’s largest town.

On the drive from our home in upstate New York, we detoured east just as we crossed the border from New Hampshire into Maine. I explained to my wife that I wanted to spend as much time as possible driving along the edge of the continent, to be reminded that we were always near the end of something. As we drove, I asked our sons which, of all the places we were planning to visit, they were most excited about. They had made it clear that the heated pools and hot tubs at Salt Cottages and at the Harborside Hotel, Spa & Marina, the two places where we would be staying in Bar Harbor, were the predetermined highlights of their trip. Still, I couldn’t help hoping that at least one of them would choose the two nights of glamping. Four years earlier, driving cross-country, our family had spent an unseasonably cold summer night at an Under Canvas site near Yellowstone, huddled in a king-size bed while a wood-burning stove crackled in the corner.

“Is it the tents at Under Canvas?” I asked them.

Gabriel, who would be turning 15 on the last night of our trip, could sense my nostalgia, and made clear he considered it his job to bat it down. He shook his head. “Sorry, Dad. It’s not the tents.”

When we arrived at Under Canvas Acadia, the sun was close to setting. We had seen photos of the camp on its website, but these did nothing to diminish our sense of wonder. With their uninterrupted views of Union Bay, the gleaming white canvas tents rising out of a clearing in the woods had an almost fairy-tale quality, as if they had been conjured rather than constructed.

That first evening, we ate lobster rolls and maple-marinated steak by a firepit. The restaurant at Under Canvas, while staying faithful to the idea of a semi-rustic canteen, was a showcase of just how extraordinary a simple menu of local ingredients can be. 

Had we been anywhere else, we would have returned to our rooms after dinner, spent a few minutes watching cable TV or looking at our phones, then gone to bed. A luxury campground in Maine, however, required a break from old habits. Our teenage sons, in a moment of joyous regression, insisted on roasting marshmallows. Licking the sugar off their hands, they then pleaded that we join the crowd of young families that had gathered in the common room to play bingo. My wife and I looked at each other, trying to recall the last time they had asked us to play a game with them. We knew not to betray even the slightest hint of surprise, and kept our composure through all three rounds—after which Louis, our youngest, declared it was still too early to go to bed. 

“One game of Scrabble?” he asked, knowing that, of course, we would say yes, because the last thing any of us wanted was for the evening to end. 

The next morning, my wife suggested we forget, at least for now, all the maps and itineraries I’d compiled. “Let’s move slowly,” she said, “and see what happens.”

Rather than head straight to Mount Desert Island, we drove a short distance south of Under Canvas to the town of Blue Hill, perhaps best known as the home turf of author E. B. White and the setting for his beloved children’s classic, Charlotte’s Web. As we ambled around its streets, our children, confused at the absence of a clear agenda, asked if we had any idea where we were going. We all looked at my wife for an answer. “We are going to walk slowly through this town,” she said. “We’re not tourists. We’re wanderers.”

Unscripted wandering came with its own unexpected rewards. We toured a few local art galleries, followed by an early lunch at the Fish Net, a roadside restaurant that, by noon, was packed with locals. We ate lobsters and corn at picnic tables and then, in our search for dessert, stumbled upon the Blue Chill, a family-run ice-pop stand that served distinctly Maine-summer flavors, such as blueberry lavender cheesecake.

The sun unexpectedly broke through the clouds just as we were finishing our ice pops, turning what had felt like an early fall day back into summer. We knew the moment might not last, and that what we needed right away was a beach, or at least direct access to a body of water—both of which we found at Harriman Point, a 138-acre preserve on the southeastern side of the peninsula.

As the day grew warmer, we hiked through the forested wetlands adjacent to White’s former house (which is still privately owned), the path covered in a layer of pine needles that made the ground feel almost tender. When we arrived at the shore, we were surprised to find that the small stretch of sandy beach overlooking Mount Desert Island and Blue Hill Bay was entirely ours. 

We waded into the clear water a few inches at a time so we could adjust to the cold. My wife took photos of the shoreline, while our sons prepared an elaborate burial for a dead crab that they claimed was almost certainly an alien. It was only when I felt a slight chill in the air that I remembered the time and suggested we leave before it grew dark. 

Back at Under Canvas that evening, we spread out a map of Acadia while our sons played cornhole with a pack of other young guests. My wife pointed out that this was the closest thing to an American summer-camp experience anyone in our family had ever had. “The only difference,” she added, “is we’re lucky enough to be with them.”

The next day we woke before sunrise, our clothes pungent with smoke from our wood-burning stoves. On the drive to the Harborside Hotel, my wife and I debated how to spend our morning in Bar Harbor. We joked that, after almost two whole days living rough in the woods, we were ready for a bit of luxury. 

Since the late 19th century, Bar Harbor has been associated with America’s wealthiest families, and while I knew it had changed significantly, I still imagined cobblestoned streets and restaurants with wood-paneled walls—a town small enough that we could see it all in an hour, two at the most. 

That morning, we kept to one of my original plans and made a brazen attempt to take in every ice cream parlor, café, restaurant, landmark, and souvenir shop in Bar Harbor. After two hours of walking, we’d covered at best two whole blocks. When we paused to rest on the town green, I was ready to admit the flaws in my approach. “Slower,” I told my wife. “I promise.” She pointed to our children, who were setting their own pace. One was having his second ice cream of the day, while the other was lying on his back, reading a graphic novel.

Later that day, we took a tour of Bar Harbor with Eben Salvatore, whose company, GEM, rents out electric buggy-like vehicles for tooling around the island. According to Salvatore, Bar Harbor is no longer just a summer destination. Cruise ships come to town from May through October, and an October marathon attracts a younger crowd. “Because the cruise ships were coming,” he noted, “the restaurants and shops would stay open.” A longer season benefited the hotels as well. “From there it just continued.” 

Over the past 14 years, my wife and I have spent at least two hundred nights sharing a hotel room with our children. Fortunately, our suite at the Harborside Hotel was more expansive than any place the four of us had stayed before. It was extravagant without being opulent, as if even the furniture knew not to distract from the waterfront views. Standing on the roof deck, which came with a hot tub, we had the sense of being at both the edge and the center of the island.

That afternoon, we made our first trip into Acadia, keenly aware that regardless of how ambitious we were over the next four days, we would see only a fraction of it. The first national park to have been assembled almost entirely out of land donated to the federal government, Acadia sprawls across roughly 50,000 acres of Mount Desert Island. Since its inception in 1916, the Schoodic Peninsula and 19 other islands have been added. 

Acadia holds some striking natural landmarks—Jordan Pond, Cadillac Mountain, the granite cliffs of Otter Point. As much a part of the park’s identity are the 45 miles of carriage roads built by John D. Rockefeller and the wild gardens and memorial paths of the Sieur de Monts Spring. With nearly 4 million annual visitors, it is almost as popular as Yosemite, despite being less than a tenth of its size. 

When we arrived at the entrance to the park, the price of that popularity became evident. The 27-mile-long Park Loop Road, which skirts around Acadia’s eastern half, was lined with cars, nearly all of which seemed to be looking for parking near the most popular sites. And while we entered Acadia knowing there was no wrong choice, no single experience that superseded others, we each had a wish list. Anne wanted to walk along the carriage roads, our sons had their hearts set on Sand Beach, and I remained fixed on seeing Cadillac Mountain. 

We wound our way slowly along the loop, which offered occasional views of Bar Harbor and the surrounding islands. As we neared Sand Beach, we learned that all the lots were full. The same was true at Jordan Pond and Eagle Lake. Our youngest son reminded us that we were in a national park, and regardless of where we stopped, it would be better to be on foot than in a car. “What happened to wandering?” he asked. 

I pulled over at the first available parking spot. We were only a short hike from Thunder Hole, an inlet on the southeastern coast known for the resounding boom that occurs when the waves hit the inlet shortly before high tide. A crowd was watching the water swirl and crash, and while there was no thunder that afternoon, the relentless drive of the waves into the shore was spectacular. 

Anne and I tried to follow our children’s lead as they climbed the rocks down to the ocean, but we quickly gave up and made our way back to Ocean Path to enjoy the view. Of all the trails in Acadia, this one is perhaps the most beautiful—and accessible. The 4.4-mile loop hugs the southeastern coast from Sand Beach to Otter Cliff, and on the afternoon we visited, it was populated with a multigenerational crowd, including hikers on their way to scale the cliff walls. 

Having taken in the shore, we headed to Cadillac Mountain. You can’t drive to the summit without a reservation, which made it not only easy to reach but also easy to get a parking space. If any place in Acadia can handle a crowd, it’s that peak. With limited vegetation thanks to strong winds and poor soil, the summit offers both room to roam and unimpeded panoramas of every corner of the park. 

We found ourselves drawn to the view of Bar Harbor and the Porcupine Islands from the North Ridge Trail, and a little way along the track we climbed down onto a boulder smooth and wide enough to hold the four of us. As it grew closer to dusk, we decided to see if we could catch the sunset from the western lot. Almost as soon as we began heading in that direction, however, we realized that almost everyone on the summit had had the same idea. Rather than settle for a partial view, we decided we would return another time, maybe for sunrise, or maybe late at night, when, we’d been told, the sky was dark enough to see the Milky Way. 

Having learned the importance of arriving early, we returned to the park shortly after breakfast the next day. We walked along the tree-lined carriage roads adjacent to Eagle Lake, which retained a sense of intimacy as they wound their way into corners of the park inaccessible to cars. We would find that same intimate connection to the landscape in other corners of Acadia. Standing beneath the carriage-road bridge at Eagle Lake, my wife and I were reminded of the arches in Central Park that our children had once loved to play under. 

When we ventured over to the quieter western half of the park to visit Echo Lake, I asked the kids if the view from the beach reminded them of anything. This time they shared my nostalgia, and agreed, without any prompting, that the clear, still waters of the long, narrow lake, with Acadia and Beech mountains rising along the sides, reminded them of our first camping trip to the Catskill Mountains. It was at that point I began to suspect that similar experiences were happening all over Acadia. The park makes it possible for anyone to find a close connection to the landscape, to see an echo of themselves in its clear waters or on the peak of one of its mountains. 

For our last two days, we traded our suite for a two-bedroom cabin at Salt Cottages, which sits on the road into Bar Harbor. The cabins that arc around the compound offered a different type of splendor, one where the red-and-white-striped picnic-blanket décor was repeated in the pool umbrellas and cushions, the awnings, and the throw blankets. 

The overall effect of all that symmetry, my wife noted, was “like being in a Wes Anderson movie.” Each seemingly minor detail was part of a larger vision in which the rustic summer-camp cabins of our childhood, real or imagined, had grown up and now came with overstuffed white couches, a second bedroom for the kids, a saltwater pool surrounded by speakers, and batched cocktails at the snack bar. 

We spent most of our first afternoon moving between the pool, the Ping-Pong table, and the cornhole board, sharing them with a young couple from Georgia and a post-wedding party of friends from Rhode Island. Had we done nothing else but play, we would have declared the day a success. It was our second-to-last night, however, and we had dinner reservations at Little Fern, in Southwest Harbor. The restaurant is in the Claremont Hotel, one of the few remaining properties on the island that dates back to the Gilded Age. 

For the first time that summer, our children put on button-down shirts and dress shoes. As we took our table, which had a misty, fog-filled view onto Somes Sound, it was easy to imagine returning someday as the guests of our grown-up sons. Having eaten nearly every possible version of lobster over the past few days, there was something special about feasting on local mushrooms and indulging in a dozen exquisite Maine oysters. By the time we finished, the sun had nearly set, and the clouds that had covered the sky all day had begun to show signs of breaking. 

It was Gabriel’s birthday in only a few more hours, so Anne and I agreed to detour into Acadia to see if we could catch a glimpse of the stars. The park at night was an entirely different thing—it has the largest expanse of dark sky east of the Mississippi. The farther and higher we drove, the quieter it became, with our car often the only vehicle on the road. 

We were almost at the entrance to Cadillac Mountain’s Summit Road when the clouds shifted again, leaving a gaping hole filled with stars, including the arc of the Milky Way. We pulled over and woke up our sons, who had fallen asleep in the back seat. We cut the lights and let our eyes adjust. When we finally got out and looked up, it was even better than we’d hoped, the four of us together, breathless in the face of ordinary wonder.

A version of this story first appeared in the July 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Chasing Summer.”